Georges Clemenceau was the premier (prime minister) in the French
government during the final twelve months of World War I. He stands as
his country's most significant political leader during the hosfiliUes, and he
played an important role at the ensuing Versailles peace conference. In the
first three years of the war, Clemenceau seized the opportunity to become
the most vocal critic of France's leadership, both political and military. Once
in office, he energized the war effort and committed his country to remaining
in the conflict until victory. At the peace negotiations, he promoted the
insertion of provisions into the Treaty of Versailles designed to prevent the
revival of a powerful Germany.
Clemenceau was bom on September 28, 1841, in Mouilleron-en-Pared,
a small village in the Vendee region. He was the son of a prosperous
landowner and physician. Educated as a physician himself, he entered
politics during the Franco-Prussian War. His career in the French parliament
began in 1 876. Thereafter, Clemenceau was a prominent figure in French
public life during the four decades prior to World War I. He rose to cabinet
rank (as minister of the interior) in 1906, and he then served as premier from
1906 to 1909. A ferocious debater and an influential writer, Clemenceau
was also a feared duelist. "The Tiger," as he was commonly known,
promoted building up French military strength in the prewar period, advancing
his views both as a member of the Senate and also as editor of his own
newspaper, L'Homme libre.
The aged political leader (he was nearly seventy-three when hostilities
began) rejected a minor post in Rene Viviani's wartime government. He
openly declared that he would serve only as premier or as France's minister
of war. He used his position as a member of the Senate to castigate both the
military high command and France's succession of weak governments from
1914 to late 1917. Secret sessions of the parliament devoted to the conduct
of the war gave him a prominent stage from which to launch his views.
Clemenceau began his criticism of the war effort by attacking the inadequacy
of the military's medical services. He had been appalled to see wounded
men from the war's first battles left untreated on a railroad train. He went on
to deplore the terrible cost of General Joseph Joffre's offensives in Artois and
Champagne, as well as the shift of troops from the western front to Salonika
in 1915. He was equally vocal in attacking Joffre's high command for
conducting the war without accepting effective government supervision. The
military often refused, for example, to permit parliamentarians even to visit
the front. Withal, Clemenceau did not offer any substantial alternatives to the
general way in which the war was being managed.
Clemenceau's rise to power came in the grim circ'umstances of 1917.
Russia's withdrawal from the war following the March Revolution threatened
to end the entire conflict on the eastern front. Thus, by the winter of
1917-1918, Germany was gathering its forces for a climactic offensive in
the west. The radical turn in Russian politics pushed French Socialists to
end their support for their country's wartime government. Added to these
woes was General Robert Nivelle's calamitous spring offensive, which
sparked a mutiny throughout much of the French army. Meanwhile, Minis
ter of the Interior Louis Malvy and other figures in the government were
promoting a defeatist stand toward the war effort.
Clemenceau, who led the government starting on November 6, 1917,
took firm control over this perilous scene. He immediately declared his
policy in simple and direct terms: "I wage war." And he set out to keep
France fighting, regardless of the cost, until the enemy finally collapsed.
Clemenceau appointed a cabinet of talented and energetic technicians such
as Louis Loucheur, the minister of munitions. The post of minister of war
he kept for himself. As the dominant figure in the government, Clemenceau
ended squabbling in the cabinet, brought the military high command under
firm control, and kept labor unrest at manageable levels.
Clemenceau understood that the French population, which had suffered
immensely since 1914, was willing to fight on. Thus, his indictment of
figures like Malvy, his suppression of pacifist propaganda, and his support
for fighting generals like Ferdinand Foch won popular approval. The
Socialist party, which had now abandoned the wartime coalition, failed
decisively when it tried to overthrow Clemenceau. He won votes of confidence
from the Chamber of Deputies by overwhelming margins.
The fiery French leader backed the appointment ofGeneral Ferdinand Foch
as supreme Allied commander when the German spring offensive threatened
to drive a wedge between the French and British armies. In June, as the final
thrust in Ludendorff's series of offensives brought the Germans perilously
close to Paris, Clemenceau confinued to support Foch. He found his judgment
confirmed by the successful Allied counterattack against the Mame salient in
July. Thereafter, Clemenceau left the military conduct of the war to the
generals unfil the Armistice was signed. Although seriously ill, he visited the
front regularly; often he placed himself close to the fighting.
Among the national leaders at the peace conference, Clemenceau
emerged as the foremost advocate of imposing a harsh settlement on
Germany. He rejected the extreme demands set forth by Foch, such as
severing the entire Rhineland from Germany. But the French premier won
important concessions from President Woodrow Wilson and Prime Minister
David Lloyd George designed to maintain German weakness. These included
placing a huge reparations burden on the defeated enemy, Hmiting
the size of Germany's armed forces, and establishing a long-term Allied
occupation of the Rhineland.
Clemenceau did not live to see Germany shake off the restricdons he had
placed on his country's historic enemy. He retired from public life in 1920
and died in Paris on November 24, 1929.
World History
